The biker grunted his thanks. He was about as wide as a refrigerator, and on the back of his leather jacket, a German iron cross was painted in red. He downed his drink and signaled for another. Rachel told him to pay for the first two. He dug into the pocket of his jeans, dropped the change on the bar, and slowly counted his pennies and dimes.

Behind him, a smelly, greasy-haired cowboy mocked the biker in a dumb-guy voice: "One nickel... two nickels... der...I lost count."

The biker turned to the grinning cowboy. "Why don't you fuck off and—"

Rachel interrupted. "Kindly excuse Bitch Cassidy here," she said, referring to the cowboy. "He's just stoned. Fact is, he's gonna pay for your drinks as compensation for his rudeness as long as you walk away and don't cause no trouble. Okay, handsome?"

The biker stared into her dark eyes, possibly getting lost in them the way I frequently did. Cowboy started to complain, but Rachel's scowl shut him down. The biker scraped up his change and walked back over to the corner where his buddies were emptying pitchers.

"All right, Midnight Cowpie," Rachel said. "What are you buying other than two shots for the fifth column?"

The cowboy wasn't happy, and Rachel's quickness didn't endear her to him. Not that he was going to do anything about it. Rachel had a shotgun behind the bar and a Model 19 Combat Magnum handgun on her hip, and if her little show-and-tell didn't keep him in line, I was ready to. I had a couple years in the Corps and forty pounds on him and would've been happy to shut his mouth.

Wild Turkey on the rocks, he said. Rachel obliged, and as he walked off, she poured me one too. Wild Turkey was what my boss drank. If Evel caught you with anything else, he'd give you shit for being disloyal or soft, depending on the beverage.

June 1977(4)